Assessments

Today’s Professionals Can’t Afford to Stay Lukewarm – It’s Time to Leverage Up

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Many business professionals today are flying solo in consulting, coaching, or taking on fractional roles, while still relying on the same mindset, habits, and approaches they used years ago. The result? Lukewarm performance, frustrated clients, and stalled careers. It’s not a legacy that successful professionals want to leave.

It’s time to leverage up and elevate your integrity, mindset, and practices so you can deliver real value and empower yourself rather than being unconsciously complacent or fearful.

What Happens When You Fail to Leverage Up

When you stay in your comfort zone, you unintentionally cap your effectiveness. You repeat outdated methods, rely on assumptions, and overlook the habits that limit your impact … no matter what you tell yourself.

The cost is real:

  • Clients lose confidence
  • Employees disengage
  • Revenues decline
  • Your reputation stagnates
  • Your self-talk isn’t positive

Professionals who fail to leverage up often don’t see the problem because they’re too busy doing the work to notice they’ve stopped growing.

Why This Matters More Than Ever

Today’s business environment demands adaptability, emotional intelligence, and integrity. When you don’t elevate your mindset, you unintentionally create risk for the people who depend on you. And, as Warren Buffet would say, without “integrity” the other two won’t matter!

Leaders, consultants, and coaches who stay lukewarm:

  • Miss critical details
  • Rely on outdated thinking
  • Overlook blind spots
  • Fail to build trust
  • Struggle to deliver consistent results

And remember, this isn’t about perfection. It’s about responsibility.

How to Leverage Up Your Effectiveness

  • Be Open. Everyone has a block: an internal barrier that keeps them stuck. Before you dismiss an idea, consider how often you resist feedback, avoid discomfort, or rely on what you already know. Openness is the gateway to growth. Ask open-ended questions to move the conversation forward.
  • Know Thy Self. Most professionals believe they are self-aware. Yet they fail to see how others experience working or interacting with them. Blind spots, defensiveness, and fear of the unknown limit effectiveness. Use job fit assessment tools that provide the scientific validation for objectivity and insights.
  • Hire an Executive Coach. Yes, I know … you don’t believe you can afford to do so. The problem is you cannot afford not to do so! An experienced coach can guide you through challenges, relationships, and opportunities and increase your awareness as you build your legacy.
  • Invest in Yourself. Take at least one course a year. Listen to podcasts that elevate your thinking. Read materials that challenges your assumptions. Growth requires intentional input.
  • Avoid Shiny Objects. Hype is everywhere. Tools, trends, and shortcuts promise miracles. Be responsible for what you adopt and how you guide others. Your credibility depends on discernment.
  • Use a Healthy Ego. Your ego isn’t the enemy … a misused ego is. A healthy ego keeps you focused on results, helps you resist bad habits (e.g., talking over others), and supports confident collaboration.
  • Use Assessments Appropriately. Not all assessments are scientifically or legally sound. Most fail the Department of Labor standards for pre-employment and selection use. Relying on weak tools damages trust and exposes employees and clients to risk.
  • Lead with Integrity When you cut corners, use inappropriate tools, or fail to honor your commitments, you lose your ability to influence a team, system, or client. Integrity is the foundation for leveraging up.

Get Started and Leverage Up

To start the process, use the PXT Select® Leadership Report to provide objective insights into how you think, behave, and make decisions … especially under pressure.

This state-of-the-art tool helps professionals:

  • Understand natural strengths
  • Identify blind spots
  • Improve communication
  • Reduce conflict
  • Strengthen team alignment

These tools (along with an experienced coach) bolster both leaders and team members, especially when miscommunication, conflict, or repeated mistakes have eroded trust.

The Bottom Line

Leveraging up is not optional. It’s the difference between being a professional who merely “does the work” and one who elevates people, systems, and results leaving a positive legacy.

© Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Groupthink Hurts Results, Retention, and Revenues

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This is Part 1 of a 2-part article. Part 1 focuses on teams alienating leaders and team members due to groupthink. Part 2 focuses on how leaders can avoid or overcome team alienation.

Every team comes to the table with long‑held traditions, sacred elephants, and the mindset of “how we’ve always done it.” Even when the leader or team member is steady and capable, the team’s anxiety can turn into quiet resistance, defensiveness, and groupthink where they believe the past matters more than moving forward or telling the truth.

Groupthink erodes trust, stalls decisions, and magnifies every unresolved issue. Slowly, the team disintegrates turning the original problem into an impossible mountain or disbanding entirely. The false sense of unity will eventually fracture the team into silos and factions.

In the process, the team ignores the leader or team member(s).

When Groupthink Takes Hold

In a study by ScienceDirect, “groupthink is more common than one would like to think.” Groupthink emerges when team members prioritize harmony, belonging, or shared frustration over critical thinking, and leads to dysfunctional decision-making.

  • The group reinforces its own beliefs, filters out contradictory information, and rewards conformity.
  • Dissent becomes risky, so no one challenges the emerging “leader we don’t like” narrative.
  • Develop an illusion of invulnerability — the belief that the group’s decision is correct and infallible.
  • Ignore ethical or moral concerns, overlook risks, or fail to consider outside perspectives.

The Escalation Pattern

Once groupthink solidifies:

  • The leader’s decisions are interpreted negatively, regardless of merit.
  • Neutral actions are reframed as evidence of the leader’s incompetence or bias.
  • The group amplifies small mistakes into “proof.”
  • Silence becomes agreement, accelerating the alienation.

The Cost of Groupthink

Alienating a leader or team member, especially a competent one, creates ripple effects:

  • Loss of direction and accountability.
  • Fragmented communication and diminished trust.
  • Increased turnover and political maneuvering.
  • Decline in psychological safety and innovation.
  • Closed doors and opportunities for the team, company, or association.
  • Loss of top talent, avoidable expenses, and poor results are unavoidable.

How to Break the Cycle

To prevent or reverse leader and team alienation:

  • Reintroduce structured decision‑making. Brainstorming, critical thinking, and alignment on decisions (not consensus) are important to ensure active participation of all team members. This also brings up issues that need to be addressed. Do not avoid elephants!
  • Ask each and every person for their input. This includes accepting diverse viewpoints. As the leader, you will need to go around the team several times to ensure all voices are heard.
  • Address cliques and insider groups directly. When you bring a team together for the first time or for each new project, outline expectations, goals, and processes. Also, mention you expect people to work together for the benefit of the client or project goal. This normally needs to be repeated during each meeting.
  • Rebuild trust through transparency and shared goals. How does this client or project benefit others? What can we do to improve the process or delivery?
  • Use objective tools (e.g., assessments, facilitation) to set or reset team dynamics. When hiring, use job-fit assessments to ensure you are hiring the right people for what needs to be done. When selecting people to work on a team, conduct a short interview to ensure they will be committed to the goal of the team. Ensure you are continually improving your facilitation skills.

Leaders and all team members must stay aware of group dynamics, challenge groupthink early, and avoid the trap of blaming others instead of strengthening their own leadership effectiveness. As the leader, it is your responsibility to stop groupthink in its tracks.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

How Do You Handle Feedback without Being Defensive?

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Receiving feedback and hearing it is a skill that many leaders and bosses need to develop. Being defensive is a difficult behavior to overcome since, too often, people want to defend their actions, attitudes, and results.

Why?

They:

  • Find it hard to laugh at themselves
  • Worked hard but failed to ask for help and instead accepted mediocrity
  • Have a perfectionist attitude
  • Feel misjudged (and it may be true)
  • Are overly sensitive to hearing anything that is negative
  • Blame the person delivering the feedback for the way they speak or deliver the information – their excuse for not listening

As a leader, you may cause team members to be defensive when you:

  • Are critical
  • Overreact to situations
  • Expect perfection
  • Take things personally
  • Have poor feedback and coaching skills

The additional problem is, coaching and feedback are difficult to hear when delivered poorly!

Yet, you will find that people excel when they are open and receptive to feedback without being defensive. (Think of well-paid sports people, leaders excelling in their work, entrepreneurs selling their startups, etc.)

How to Hear Feedback without Being Defensive

  • Be open and value the insight, whether you want to hear it or not.
  • Set aside ego. While you may not like being judged, develop a healthy ego that is committed to your success.
  • Ask for clarification or example. Ask open-ended questions, and hear the value offered. (Even when the feedback or coaching is poorly delivered.)
  • Thank the person for their insights. Include their recommendations where appropriate (e.g., if you winging presentations, a plan and practice will make a big difference in your career).
  • Remember, saying you’ll think about it is a different way of being defensive.

How to Deliver Feedback without Being Defensive

  • Talk with a select few people that were impacted or aware of the situation. Be careful about nitpicking someone’s personality. If someone talks too much, instead of saying that, say, “It’s important in these situations that you listen more than talk. And, here’s why.”
  • Use sandwich or direct approach. This depends on the person and the type of feedback you need to deliver.
  • Practice with your coach. Especially if you’re a new leader, or believe the person will be defensive.
  • Keep it simple. No more than two key issues or challenges. Yes, there may be more feedback you feel is necessary. But that can be overwhelming and not helpful. (I’ve seen leaders and bosses give an employee a list of 20 items … the person was overwhelmed and became defensive. Consider, in this case and similar ones, that it is due to poor job fit.) Again, to ensure great results, only provide two at a time and check in with the person to determine progress before adding additional areas for improvement … you find additional feedback is not necessary.
  • Make a plan for improvement. For team members, it’s important that there is a process they can follow and learn from.
    • Either: The most effective choice is to have the person create it (be clear about required outcomes and have a “By When Date” this will occur).
    • Or, provide a process for them to follow, which will not be as effective because there may not be buy in, and will be effective as long as you are managing the process.
  • Now, follow-up and follow-through. Most people skip this … big mistake! You need to have regular check ins to ensure progress is being made. It also shows your commitment to the person’s success.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Do You Need to Hire Salespeople? What Are 5 Key Tips to Ensure They Fit the Job?

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Hiring salespeople can be a challenge. Many look and/or talk the part, but once hired, fail to produce the required results. It’s up to you to improve your selection process to uncover salespeople who can actually sell your product or service, and fit the job requirements.

Remember, it’s always faster, easier, and far less expensive to determine their ability to sell before you hire them. If you don’t, you’ll spend too much money and energy — and face sleepless nights attempting to fix them (and this never works out well for anyone).

5 Tips to Improve Your Selection Process

  1. Listening Skills Are they listening? Can they hear you? Do they respond appropriately? Ask the candidate to summarize the interview or parts of the conversation by asking, “Tell me what you heard?”
  2. Do They Ask Questions? Do they have questions about your company, product, management style, etc.? If not, move on. Candidates who don’t ask questions lack the curiosity, interests, and skills to inquire further.
  3. Are They Calm and Patient? Does the person squirm in their seat? Do they rush the conversation or attempt to finish your sentences? Do they look at you when speaking or listening? While closing is a required skill, it also requires the ability to ask several times in several different ways without being offensive.
  4. Do They Fit the Job? To determine key traits, most salespeople need prospecting, presenting, and closing skills must have the interest to use these skills. Use a qualified job‑fit assessment. Can they do these things? Will they do these things? And can they do these things for your company and product?
  5. Do They Tell the Truth? To objectively answer this question, first use an honesty/integrity assessment to uncover omissions not found in public records. It saves time and money by eliminating candidates who stretch the truth (think customer expectations and fulfillment). Second, always conduct thorough due diligence with final candidates by checking background, education, and other accomplishments.

Bonus Tip: Do They Follow a Sales Process?

Sales Process Discipline. Many salespeople rely on charm, personality, or improvisation. But consistent results require following a repeatable sales process. Notice whether the candidate follows your interview structure, asks clarifying questions, and moves through conversations logically. Salespeople who resist structure rarely produce consistent results.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Want to Accelerate Career Options? Make a Lateral Move

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I remember talking with a woman who had been unemployed for a while. When I suggested she ‘stretch’ from finance into operations by making a lateral move, she looked at me like I’d grown another head.

“Oh no! I’m very committed to staying in my profession,” she exclaimed.

I replied, “It doesn’t mean you will not return to finance. However, gaining operational experience in running a department or team can greatly boost your business acumen. Lateral moves can provide you a diverse skill set, increased visibility, and credibility as a future leader.”

What are lateral career moves?

A lateral career move is a strategic transition to a role at the same level of responsibility and pay, designed to broaden skills, gain new experiences, and position yourself for future advancement. (Indeed)

What are the benefits?

  • Can be beneficial for learning new skills or securing your future.
  • Learning different duties or responsibilities.
  • Increased visibility
  • Credibility as a future leader
  • Note: Not recommended if you make too many of them or face a career setback.

Making a lateral move doesn’t mean you were not qualified in your current profession or previous position. A “stretch position” can accelerate your career growth and options because it provides broader exposure to business challenges, making you a better boss/leader, decision-maker, and business professional. It’s also a great way to skill stack your experiences, education, and expertise.

How to Prepare for a Lateral Move

Job Fit Assessment. Be clear about your strengths and weaknesses before making a job transition. Use an objective job fit assessment that provides a “job fit pattern” for the lateral position. This helps you (and your new boss) understand where to focus when coaching and managing you for success.

Get Your Brag On! Complete the five easy steps for sharing your wins and successes. Sharing these during networking meetings and interviews for the lateral position will make a difference. Remember, there will be “cross-over” skills, and you must emphasize them (e.g., communication, finance, people, technology) since you cannot rely on the job titles, professional experiences, and job responsibilities they normally seek.

Networking Works. Do your homework by going out for coffee or lunch, or Zoom with several people already working in the profession. What do they enjoy about it? What are the challenges? How can you, with your current experiences, make a difference? Use open-ended questions to learn more. Remember, this is crucial … listen to learn!

Prepare for the Interview. You will be ready for the interview after following the first three recommendations above. Be sure to conduct your due diligence during all interviews for the lateral position about expectations, goals, and any challenges in the position. It is important to address any reluctance of the company, team, or hiring boss upfront without being defensive. After you’ve been offered the position, it’s time to discuss salary and benefits … they may not change … this is about gaining experience, not a pay increase at the present moment.

Keys for Success: Learn the basics, listen more than talk, and have a positive can-do attitude. Hire an executive coach and select a mentor to talk through the inevitable sticky situations and political work relationships that will occur. Also, take the time now to develop essential leadership skills in emotional intelligence, communication, critical thinking, and project management. These are valued “cross-over skills” in any position aka skill stacking.

©Jeannette Seibly 2024-2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a legacy‑driven Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author. For over 33 years, she has empowered thousands of executives and business leaders to achieve sustainable success through strategic hiring, values‑based coaching, and intentional leadership development. Her work blends clarity, accountability, and soulful impact—activating performance and purpose at every level.

Build a Strong and Dynamic Team to Produce Great Results

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Many leaders today struggle with building a team that produces intended results, is innovative, and works well together. Many leaders blame their lack of success on the belief that the “right” team members cannot be found.

The real problem? Leaders fail to take responsibility and be held accountable for hiring, coaching, and managing their team (individually and as a group) to be strong and dynamic. Instead, they rely on outdated management of the processes and execution of the goal. When they claim they “don’t have the right people,” it is a way to distract others from their inability or unwillingness to lead effectively.

How to Transform Your Team and Achieve Intended Results

A leader’s beliefs matter. Your beliefs can become an excuse that prevents you from developing teams, addressing blind spots, and doing the real work required to build a strong and dynamic team. To improve everyone’s skills, you must be willing to look in the mirror, acknowledge what’s not working, and take deliberate steps to strengthen your leadership effectiveness through coaching, feedback, and consistent practice.

Hire for job fit. This is the ignored key to ensure you have the right people on the team, with the skills, attitude, behavior, and interests to achieve the intended results. Don’t forget onboarding is critical to each person’s success … it gives them the direction and support to integrate well and become productive more quickly.

Remove your ego. A healthy ego is key. An unhealthy ego will sabotage your results. If you’re egotistical and unable to be a true leader for your team, step aside. OR hire an experienced executive coach to guide you along the way. This requires developing emotional intelligence and awareness of what may trigger your upsets, frustrations, and other poor communication habits.

Manage for results, not personalities. This can be a hard one: Focus on the action plan while staying focused on the goal. This can be difficult when people don’t get along, create miscommunication, and are not team players. Use a qualified job fit assessment that reveals objective data, not how the person wants to be seen, which will camouflage job fit and hurt results. This clarity will improve results, while strengthening your team.

Define role expectations. Address clearly defined roles, who makes which decisions, and expectations. Many teams fail not because of talent, but because people don’t know what “success” looks like in their role or how their work connects to the bigger picture. It’s up to you to communicate and guide the way.

Create or follow accountability systems. Instead of “winging it,” create or use structures that keep teams aligned: metrics, check-ins, dashboards, or performance conversations. Leaders often “get out of the way” by stepping back so far that the team lacks direction, guardrails, and timely feedback, leaving people to guess at priorities, make assumptions, and commit avoidable mistakes.

Communicate with intention. When you are being indecisive, people will take advantage of you. Instead, be clear about the goal, budget, and any other defined structures or limitations. Admit when you are uncertain about what to do next. Ask the team for their input by asking open-ended questions. Encourage brainstorming, and avoid the trap of seeking consensus. Remember, innovation and communication improve when people feel safe speaking up. The solutions will reveal themselves.

Apologies are required. When mistakes occur, and they will, own them. Apologize. Move forward. All is not lost if you are looking for the lesson(s) learned from the mistake or failure. Many times, it leads to the next successful innovation!

Use Please and Thank You! People want to feel valued. If you are not appreciating your team and the individuals that support the process and achievement of the intended results, you are not building a strong and dynamic team … just one that’s waiting to move on … and away from you.

Celebrate and Brag! Every milestone is important, since each one leverages your next one. Speak positively about your team members, and ensure there is a celebration beyond a weekly pizza.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Leaders With Healthy Egos Produce Intended Results

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Your ego, as a leader, can be both a benefit and a cost to relationships, retention, results, and revenues. Egos can be both useful and dangerous: it can fuel confidence and drive OR blind leaders to reality and damage trust and results.

Example: When hiring employees, your ego gets in the way by not listening and instead, relying on intuition, gut reactions, or biases. The hiring boss fails to collect objective data, and then, acts surprised when the new employee miscommunicates, ignores team members, and performance is subpar.

Egos fuel entitlement and self-sabotage. Egotistical leaders believe the rules don’t apply to them or that their position earns them special treatment. They rely on being right, being in control, or being seen as the smartest person in the room. This erodes their credibility and trust because the ego is wired to protect identity and status, especially when a leader feels insecure, which undermines intended results.

Conversely, a healthy ego becomes a stabilizer. Leaders who don’t need special treatment or constant validation make clearer decisions, build stronger relationships, and earn genuine respect. This grounded approach strengthens trust, psychological safety, and a culture where team members follow because they want to.

Costs of Allowing Egos to Manage the Leader

  • Self‑Belief vs. Arrogance. When confidence becomes arrogance, leaders become defensive, overconfident, and dismissive, driving poor decisions and pushing top talent and customers out the door.
  • Lack of Self‑Awareness. Without self‑awareness, leaders miss the moment when the ego takes over, derails conversations, damages relationships, and creates avoidable conflict.
  • Breakdown in Listening. Ego-driven leaders talk over others, assume they already know the answer, and shut down collaboration, which stifles innovation and team engagement.
  • Distorted Decision‑Making. Egos narrow perspective, causing leaders to ignore data and dismiss alternatives to “prove they’re right.”
  • Avoid Accountability. Leaders who let their egos run the show blame others, justify poor choices, and resist feedback, weakening credibility and slowing team performance.
  • Erosion of Trust. When ego overshadows humility, psychological safety disappears, people stop speaking up, and overall innovation and performance decline.

How to Develop a Healthy Ego

A healthy ego provides confidence, resilience, and steadiness when under pressure. Strong leaders know when to dial the ego down and dial humility up to move teams forward, handle tough conversations, and build reliable working relationships.

  • Self‑Belief vs. Arrogance. Leaders with true confidence asks open-ended questions, listen, and build win-win-win results. When they make mistakes or misspeak, they apologize immediately.
  • Self‑Awareness as the Regulator. Self‑awareness helps leaders recognize when ego is helping and when it’s hijacking judgment. Pausing, noticing triggers, and using feedback as a mirror prevents unnecessary conflict and poor decisions.
  • Intentional Listening. Practicing curiosity and humility are skills that can be developed. This way of listening restores collaboration without letting conversations go sideways.
  • Objective Decision‑Making. Using objective data while engaging in diverse viewpoints and structured decision processes prevents costly missteps, especially in hiring, strategy creation, and fulfillment of intended results.
  • Accountability and Ownership. A healthy ego takes responsibility, slows down to include the team, and ensures everyone contributes for stronger results.
  • Build Trust. When balancing ego with humbleness, a healthy ego helps leaders believe in their teams, overcome setbacks, and create win‑win‑win outcomes.
  • Strengthen Effectiveness. Leaders with a healthy ego build self‑awareness habits, seek reality checks, use structured decision frameworks, separate identity from ideas, and treat humility as a leadership tool.
  • Ask For and Accept Help. Healthy‑ego leaders know they can’t do it all. Asking for help, accepting support, and working with mentors or a coach keeps blind spots in check and strengthens decision‑making.

A healthy ego models strength by showing the team that collaboration, guidance, and continuous improvement are essential to effective leadership. Tools like PXT Select® and the PXT Select® Leadership Report provide objective insights into how leaders think, behave, and make decisions, especially when under pressure. (The PXT Select® also bolsters team members, especially when there has been conflict, miscommunication, and too many mistakes and failures along the way.)

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved (Written with research assistance from AI)

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Be a Respected Leader and Achieve Intended Results

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Being a respected leader and boss requires taking responsibility for each situation, discovering the true issue, and making the best decisions to improve results. And? Asking for help! (So often overlooked until it’s too late.)

Respect grows when you prevent small issues from becoming major crises and shows your team you value team results over your ego.

The biggest challenge I’m seeing today with leaders is they focus on being well‑liked by employees and customers, and disregard the importance of being respected. This stifles innovation, and team members withdraw from actively focusing on intended results.

A general manager (GM) for a company was well liked by employees and clients. It was a surprise and shock when he was reamed by a new board member about his poor management of the company’s satellite office. After the board session, the GM resigned. After the employees and other board members convinced him to stay, he rescinded his resignation. But nothing was done to resolve the real issue of poor financial management of the satellite office. Several months later the GM was fired.

In this situation, the GM was liked but not respected. He did not ask for help, and no one addressed the real issue of poor financial management results. This also revealed a deeper problem: there were no accountability systems in place to catch issues early, and no one was telling the truth soon enough to prevent a crisis.

5 Keys to Build Respect as a Leader

  1. Select the Best People. Stop intuitive hiring practices! Respect begins by hiring, promoting, and job transitioning your management and employee teams into positions that fit them! (It’s called job‑fit.) Before selecting people, craft a well‑designed selection process to collect objective, valid, and reliable data about the person’s ability to be effective in the job. This requires using qualified job‑fit assessments, conducting job‑focused interviews, and implementing a six‑month onboarding program.
  2. Make Faster Decisions. Taking days, weeks, or months to make decisions is often due to poor decision‑making skills. Do your homework by having intentional conversations … the decisions will become much clearer. Remember, integrity, critical thinking, and paying attention to the impact on others are key to making decisions that impact everyone long‑term. Let go of those elephants!
  3. Talk It Out. Communication is everything. Too often, leaders don’t pay attention to their own words, avoid having tough conversations, and ignore others’ concerns. With your team, go around the table to get everyone’s input until there is nothing new being added. The process includes eliciting responses from those you normally don’t listen to, and may include things you don’t want to hear! The answers reside inside the quality of these conversations! Yes, it can take more time in the short-run. But in the long run, it builds respect for you as a leader, and provides support when implementing less‑than‑popular decisions. Telling the truth early, even when it’s uncomfortable, is a cornerstone of respect and prevents small issues from becoming major problems.
  4. Build Good Working Relationships. This facilitates getting things resolved with less push-back and faster buy‑in. Respect is a two‑way street. Before offering opinions about how things should be done or how a person should view a situation, listen! Remember, hearing and asking open‑ended questions will always build stronger relationships and uncover most concerns.
  5. Plan for Your Replacement. Succession planning and development are crucial for future leaders. When you plan for your replacement, you build respect because you are showing your commitment to the longevity of the company, more than your own personal interests. You never know when your successor will need to step up, either short or long‑term, due to illness, death of a family member, and other issues. The key? Make sure the person is the right one. (SEE #1 above) Too often, a good #2 person does not make a good #1 leader. Don’t skip #1.

To be a respected leader and achieve intended results, implement the five keys. Contact me to accelerate your success.

©Jeannette Seibly, 2023-2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

5 Attitudes Required to Fast Track Career Success

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There are many conversations business professionals, executives, and business leaders keep continue to have about why they are unhappy in their jobs or careers. These otherwise qualified individuals live under the false illusion that finding the perfect career or job will automatically have them earning mega-bucks, working for a great boss, and enjoying a great life!

But not so fast! The truth is … if you want to fast track your career success … first, you need to address the elephants in the room as to why you’ve derailed your career.

The Elephant Tracks That Keep You Stuck

Elephant tracks are made by people not bring forth their A Game! They are more focused on gossip, factions, and not doing complete work.

I can do anything, but don’t want to do this. According to Gallup, over 80 percent of people are in jobs that don’t fit them.

Gimme, gimme. Many people jump for extra pennies or dollars in their paycheck, but then end up leaving those jobs because they are unhappy!

Grass is greener. All companies have their issues.  

I’m too busy. There’s a saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”

Bigger is better. A bigger company does not mean it is better run, regardless of their bigger budgets!

Rather than believe you’re stuck in a job or career, recognize you are there because of your unwillingness to make the needed changes. Only you are responsible for your work-life happiness!

Your Career Success IS an Inside Job

Remember, it’s an attitude. Take charge of your career.

  • Understand and clarify your strengths as they are, not as you believe they should be. Learn skill stacking. Take a qualified job fit assessment to clarify job fit.
  • Professionals who hire the right career or executive coach have a competitive edge, with their current employer or their next one. They enjoy their jobs again.
  • Empower yourself to ask for help. Stop waiting for someone to show you the right direction.
  • Stop mimicking others in hopes of becoming happier. Happiness is an inside job!
  • New opportunities will appear quicker when you have a great mindset and are focused on fulfilling your career goals.
  • Learn what your boss and the company needs done. Have strategic conversations (yes, many) to ensure you’re on the right track. Then, get busy.
  • You learn to how sell yourself in a business savvy manner. (https://SeibCo.com/books/).
  • You write down the top three must-haves for the next job, and take action to fulfill them in your current one!

Fast tracking your career success is an inside job. Focus on building your strengths, working with a coach to develop your EI, and be ready to move forward when opportunities appear.

©Jeannette Seibly 2012-2026 All Rights Reserved

Jeannette Seibly is a Leadership Results Coach, Talent Advisor, and Business Author with 33 years of experience activating greatness in leaders and companies. She delivers practical coaching and solutions that elevate performance today, build legacies that stand the test of time, and support people in empowering themselves to lead with clarity and impact.

Being successful in your career isn’t hard. Stop expecting your boss, company, and others to create your success! Look inside yourself. If you are stuck, reach out now before you talk yourself out of it. Contact me.

Listen to: The Business Power Hour: Deb Krier’s 1176 episode with Jeannette Seibly, feel the fear and do it anyway:  https://youtu.be/kQLaw_jN50Q

How to Use Technology and AI to Attract and Hire Top Talent

by

Many social posts and media highlight AI’s value in automating hiring. But they overlook that human interaction is still required.

AI and Technology Excels At:

  • Finding candidates
  • Screening for basic qualifications
  • Scheduling interviews
  • Managing communication
  • Tracking candidate progress

AI is Only as Good as a company’s hiring clarity and systems programming:

  • Cannot infer job success factors a company or hiring manager has not defined (e.g., requiring a four‑year degree vs. hiring for job interest (financial interest for accountants).
  • Overvalues credentials (e.g., degrees and job titles) and dismisses non‑traditional work (e.g., gig driver).
  • Cannot improve a job description or ad that is vague, outdated, copied, or contains bias from past hiring decisions. Instead, AI will amplify and automate those flaws and use these biases. The results are not legally defensible.
  • Can send “thank you” letters, but relies on consistent communication programming – or it can damage a company’s reputation.
  • Cannot build trust if auto‑responses feel cold or systems fail to notify managers of scheduled interviews.
  • Doesn’t recognize and value every job candidate as a potential customer, future contract decision maker, or vendor/supplier.

What AI and Technology Cannot Do Right Now:

  • Tell the difference between subjective and objective data
  • Listen and determine a candidate’s coachability, resilience, or job curiosity
  • Evaluate job candidate conduct during an interview (tone, listening skills, trust‑building, authenticity)
  • Make a hiring decision
  • Provide legally compliant interview questions or deep‑dive questions into responses
  • Replace qualified assessments (validated, reliable, legally defensible tools)
  • Note: AI‑powered personality quizzes are not validated for pre‑employment or promotion use.

AI Legal Risks Often Overlooked:

  • Several states require transparency when AI is used in hiring
  • Some states require bias audits of automated hiring tools
  • The EEOC has issued guidance on AI discrimination

Companies relying on AI without understanding these requirements expose themselves to compliance risk and potential legal challenges.

AI is a tool … not a decision maker. Human discernment is still the differentiator and a critical piece in the hiring and selection process.

©Jeannette Seibly 2026 All Rights Reserved

Written with help from AI

Jeannette Seibly is a Talent Advisor, Leadership Results Coach, and Business Author with over 33 years of experience guiding people to empower themselves, transforming workplaces into places that work, and shaping leaders who truly lead.

Want or need to improve your hiring results? We all do. Let’s schedule a conversation to determine where you need to focus first. Contact me to understand and use the power of objective data when hiring.